Hamilton College is having its first Trustee election in 30 years this year. From what I understand, typically their Alumni Council nominates a slate, and if there is no opposition, there is no election. This year, however, a group of intrepid alumni have used a long-dormant petition process to get their names on the ballot and spur an election. I don't know any of the petition candidates, but from what I can gather, the restrictions on candidate speech appear to be quite severe. The candidates also have specified a number of very specific concerns about Hamilton that animated their candidacy, including their own Ward Churchill imbroglio and hiring Susan Rosenberg to teach a class (events which FIRE describes and has some links).
FIRE and ACTA discuss the Hamilton situation.

The Hamilton College Alumni for Governance Reform has established a blog or bulletin board of sorts to cover election events. Interested Hamilton College alumni might want to check it out. I understand that balloting ends on August 15, and balloting there seems to be by paper ballot only.

I obviously have no opinion on the merits of this race and don't know or endorse any of the candidates. But, needless to say, I am intrigued by efforts at other colleges to open up the alumni trustee election process, especially through use of the ballot petition process.

I think Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton during the peak of the uproar over his checkered career missteps.

One need not know these particular candidates to predict their positions on the issues of the day. Just like fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, trustees at liberal arts colleges gotta toe the liberal line and support the whole multi-cultist propaganda machine the left has become.

The voting is by snail mail and all ballots must be received by Aug. 15th, so we'll know the results shortly. Our hope was to ask what we believe to be significant questions regarding the failure of the governance process at Hamilton, to modify the behavior of the organization, and to provide the alumni with some much needed choice beyond the self-selecting guild.

Hamilton is going to have another election for alumni trustees this year. The petitions of Ben Wu and Peter Brown were accepted on Jan. 5 as valid and in good order. Procedures for the election will be forwarded to each candidate shortly.

Many of us believe that some fresh, outside perspectives would benefit Hamilton's governance.

Peter is a new candidate and believes that the governance of the school would benefit from some new, independent trustees, greater transparency, more disclosure, freedom of expression, and diversity of thought. He has posted a biography at www.hcagr.squarespace.com. In the meantime feel free to call him at (o) 907 564 0450 (Anchorage time) or email him at pdb[AT]gci.net to get his views on any matter.

Ben is to be commended for returning as a candidate from the last election where he got the most votes of all the petition candidates. We encourage you to email Ben at realshw[AT]att.net. His views are also on the hcagr website.